This week I am hosting fellow writer, Faye Ling, who is new to the online world, and blogging in particular. Blackmail is such a dirty word, so let’s just say I owed her a few favours that she recently called in, and so today I ‘ve been forced to offer her this opportunity to try her hand at blogging. She is outspoken, often controversial, and takes no prisoners. Before I nervously hand over to my first guest blogger, I feel the need to issue a disclaimer:

EDITORIAL NOTE FROM T. JAMES: The views expressed in the following guest post are entirely those of its author, Miss Faye Ling. I have given editorial control to Faye for the purposes of this post. Except for her use of expletives, which I have edited, I take no responsibility for the opinions she expresses, or the way in which she chooses to express them. The words are entirely hers and in no way reflect my own beliefs or opinions. After some negotiation, I also managed to get Faye to agree to issue the following statement (although she has paraphrased my original wording):

“T. James has insisted that I say up front that I had no one in particular in mind when I wrote this post. I mean, I can think of several people this post applies to, but for some reason T. James has refused to introduce me to anyone he knows online, so obviously I’m not thinking of any of you. But because the hard-of-thinking assume that any negative generalisation somehow applies to them as an individual, any offense taken is completely the fault of the idiot choosing to be offended. Go and get some therapy for your low self-esteem. If you have low self-esteem and you aren’t prepared to embrace the darkside, do not read this post. If you’ve had a sense-of-humour bypass in the last twelve months, do not read this post. In fact, it is probably just better for you if you do not read this post.” Continue reading

Over the past few weeks I have been following Steve McHugh’s blog posts of the first chapters of his soon-to-be-released novel, Crimes Against Magic. (Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2) I’ve been enjoying the writing—it’s clean, dynamic and engaging, and it has a plot and characters with enough depth to keep readers hooked until the end. Here is Steve’s summary:

“It’s been almost ten years since Nathan Garrett woke on a cold warehouse floor with nothing but a gun, a sword, and no idea of who he was or how he got there. His only clue … a piece of paper with his name on it. Since then, he’s discovered he’s a powerful sorcerer and has used his abilities to work as a thief for hire. But he’s never stopped hunting for his true identity, but those who erased his memory have never stopped hunting for him. When the barrier holding his past captive begins to crumble, Nathan swears to protect a young girl who is key to his enemy’s plans. But with his enemies closing in, and everyone he cares about becoming a target for their wrath, Nathan is forced to choose between the life he’s built for himself and the one buried deep inside him.

Crimes Against Magic is an Urban Fantasy set in modern day London with Historical flashbacks to early fifteenth century France. It’s the first in a series of books called the Hellequin Chronicles, which shows the life of Nathan (Nate) Garrett, a sixteen-hundred year old sorcerer.” Continue reading

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THE NOVEL – “Untitled” – Work on my fantasy novel continues, but I’m very much in the early stages of writing a first draft. The characters now have some colour and back-story, and the plot arc is slowly building on a, hopefully, solid foundation. My inspiration is coming as I write, and I have several ideas for an ending, but so far firm ideas for the latter story arc remain elusive. Overall though, I’m generally pleased with how things are going, and feeling inspired to see this project through to completion. *UPDATE – Still progressing 11/08/11.*

SHORT STORIES – *UPDATED 11/08/11* I’m currently attempting to finish a short story. It is a real challenge, cross culture, cross gender, and a sensitive and emotive subject. Whether I ever release it depends, mostly, on whether I feel I have done the subject-matter justice, as I feel trivialising it would be wrong.

MY BLOG – TheWordOnThe.Net– I am very much enjoying writing shorter, varied pieces of work as I seek to explore and expand my limits as a writer. As such the content, and format of the blog are changing with time as my ideas and aims coalesce. *UPDATED – 11/08/11*. Recently I’ve found myself exploring nonsense poetry. I don’t know if it’s very good, but I’m not going to learn unless I experiment. I would read them with this in mind :-). I may try something more serious at some point, maybe.

THIS NEWS FEED – I may change from this basic format in the future to either an RSS feed, forum, news link with my blog, or alternatively explore the possibilities offered by Facebook, Twitter et. al. Decisions, decisions?!